Big Love: Was the Stormin' Mormon Right All Along?

So I guess Bill Henrickson was right about everything: his campaign, his Rambo-esque commando skills, his Washington-infighting savvy, and his wives' willingness to support and follow him no matter how outlandish his ideas. And let it be said, the Stormin' Mormon is one helluva tetherball player too.

As this season's Big Love lurched to a stop on Sunday—after an out-of-control, Camry-like run through Indian lands, Washington D.C., Mexico, the Utah countryside, home shopping, parrot smuggling, and a human egg-harvesting scheme—we were left with a disturbing notion. That is, that Mr. Bill truly is a man anointed by his Heavenly Father (and we don't mean Frank) to carry the word and stand up for the principle. Or, as Bill would have it, The Principle.

But Bill's long-awaited comeuppance never came.

It did seem, for a moment, that some semblance of sanity would return to Big Love. Barb began asking questions that should have been asked weeks earlier and reached the only logical conclusion: "The world is not ready for us and we are not ready for it." Marilyn and Ana called Bill out for his toxic combination of selfishness and self-righteousness: Charlatan. Sad, stupid man. Sounds about right, no?

Yet Bill remained undaunted and convinced of his destiny. The wives are upset? Nothing that a shopping splurge at Dillard's won't fix. And he could declare with a straight face, "I don't make deals with morally bankrupt vipers." Which is like the asp calling the rattler a snake.

Bill has a unique way of acknowledging his failings. He confessed that he has seen the darkness inside himself and then rationalized that his campaign and his willingness to come out about his polygamy would be a form of redemption for his sins. I was certain that he would back off from an announcement—after all, he recognized that the idea of a mistress and a love child would sink him politically.

But announce he did, and while it provided a great visual of Bill on stage with the wives, it remained hard to believe that, as a Lost Boy son of Juniper Creek and a trustee of the UEB (particularly after Dale's hanging), Bill would not have been asked to renounce polygamy as the campaign progressed. Especially as indictments and allegations about incest in the Kansas compound emerged on national television ("Colorado City, you're on Larry King!"). So Big Bill's big reveal would have almost certainly come sooner in the campaign. Aren't there any bloggers in Utah?

Maybe Bill's speech should have gone farther. What did we learn from the Tiger Woods ordeal? Get it all out and be done with it:

"So in addition to having three wives, I'd like to acknowledge a few more things before you try and dig up more dirt on me. Now, let's see. I found out recently that my brother Joey had killed the father of my second wife, Nicki. That would be Roman Grant, the onetime leader of Juniper Creek. And speaking of digging up more dirt, it probably wasn't the best move for Joey to exhume Roman and burn his body. I give you my word that I'll have a little chat with him about that one."

"I found all that out when Joey and I went down to Mexico to rescue my son and my parents from a rival polygamist group led by a crazy man, Hollis Singer Greene. Sure, we have our bad eggs too. My mom was running a little parrot-smuggling operation, and she called the birds clitorises, but I don't want you all reading too much into that. Anyway, she chopped off Hollis's arm and I must say that it was a pretty successful operation. Let me clarify: By operation, I mean the rescue and not the amputation itself."

"Now, Nicki's brother Alby, he's kind of high-strung. A bit of an odd duck, it's fair to say. He married Nicki's mom off to Nicki's former husband J.J. Sure, that's a little weird, I suppose, but everything turned out okay because J.J. and his freakshow wife went up in flames. I've heard it's possible her wig spontaneously combusted. The Heavenly Father truly works in miraculous ways and I'll leave it to the fire authorities to determine the specifics."

"What else? Right, my third wife, Margene. Cute little thing, isn't she? Well, don't read too much into it but right now she's married to Goran, the fiancée of the woman who almost became my fourth wife and who just happens to be carrying my baby. It's not love, just a way to help him circumvent INS rules and stay in the country. And yes, my son Ben got a bit sweet on Margene, but I can't say I blame him. After all, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?"

"Now even though I have paraded my children on stage, I'd like you to have the decency to respect my family's privacy. You see, I love my children— although I'm not really sure who has been taking care of most of them. Nicki's getting her fertility treatments, Margene's doing her home shopping thing, and Barb's running my casino. At least when she's not running over meth-dealing single Indian mothers on the res'. But let me just state that there's no truth to the rumors that my daughter Teenie was abducted earlier this year and replaced by a tap-dancing replicate."

"So in conclusion, I'd like to leave you all with one final thought: Is this a great country or what? And I think the only possible answer to that question is a big resounding 'You betcha!'"